Midwife Grace Strange shares her pregnancy and birth experience

We sat down to chat all things pregnancy, birth and postpartum with midwife, educator and OHbaby birth expert Grace Strange, after the happy arrival of her first baby.

Q: Congratulations Grace on the arrival of your little girl! Tell us a bit about your journey to get there…

A: Our journey to get pregnant wasn’t as straightforward as we would have hoped. Our gorgeous little girl Olive was conceived via IVF. Although incredibly grateful for amazing fertility medicine, it is not for the faint hearted! My husband and I tried to get pregnant naturally after we got married but it just wasn't happening. Being a midwife and in my 30s, I knew too much about the struggles of getting pregnant and I wasn’t keen to muck around. We worked really closely with an incredible naturopath Loula George from Motherwell. Loula has worked with many couples going through fertility treatments with Fertility Associates, so is knowledgeable about all their protocols and systems as well as looking at both my husband and I holistically. We did four months of preparation before we started IVF to make sure we had the highest quality eggs and sperm and that my body was in the most favourable condition possible to get pregnant. We were incredibly fortunate that we got pregnant off the first round and I truly accredited that to Loula and all the work we did. The IVF process itself as mentioned is not for the faint of heart, lots of injections, scans, blood tests etc. I was very uncomfortable by the end and we both found the egg collection rather traumatic to be frank. That's certainly not everyone's experience but I’d go through childbirth rather than going through that again!

Q: How was your pregnancy? Was there anything that surprised you, having looked after pregnant women for so long and already knowing so much about the process?

A: After an agonising two week wait we got the call on my birthday that we were pregnant and it honestly took me until about 20 weeks to believe it was true! Like lots of women, I was super nauseous in the first trimester and it lingered well into the second trimester. I just got over the nausea and then battled with pelvic pain until the end of my pregnancy. Not too bad all in all, I had a pretty standard, boring, non-eventful pregnancy – thankfully!

The thing I found most challenging was knowing way too much. At every stage of pregnancy I knew the risks and what could go wrong. I was working in a large private obstetric practice at the time and there were frequently women who would lose a pregnancy or have some major issue so that was very confronting and in hindsight added a lot of anxiety to an already high stakes pregnancy for me.

Going through the pregnancy experience myself I just have so much more awe and respect for women and what they go through. It's absolutely mindblowing that we continue to function at such a high level in our careers, at home, with our partners and friends when we are growing a human being! It is not an easy thing to do when you feel nauseous, tired, uncomfortable or in pain, aren't sleeping well, none of your clothes fit and your body is constantly changing, that's just the physical side. Not to mention your hormones and all the mental adjustments. We are amazing!

Q: What was your plan for birth and postpartum and what ended up happening?

A: My plan for birth was to have an elective c-section. Not a very ‘midwifey’ birth choice but given all that we had been through to get our baby it just felt like the safest birth option for me. And we did have Olive via elective section at 39 weeks and she was absolutely perfect.

The c-section itself ended up having a few unexpected complications and I lost 1.5 litres of blood but other than that went smoothly and I loved my birth experience. I had previously worked as the elective c-section midwife at Auckland Hospital so I knew the whole team. It was definitely weird being the patient but everyone was so lovely and went above and beyond for us which made the whole thing so special. We stayed at Auckland Hospital for two nights and then went home once I could manage my pain. I was incredibly fortunate to not have any breastfeeding issues in terms of latching. I had spent hundreds of hours teaching women how to breastfeed so knew it could definitely come with its challenges but between my knowledge and Olive not having any anatomical issues we nailed it from the start. I did battle with low supply and Olive’s weight initially due to the significant blood loss but my supply did establish eventually.

Q: Did anything about the birth and postpartum period take you by surprise?

A: Nothing about the birth took me by surprise, again I knew too much. I remember the doctors asking for particular drugs and me saying to my husband very nonchalantly ‘Oh, I must be losing quite a lot of blood if they are asking for those drugs’, not something my poor husband wanted to hear. My recovery from the c-section took much longer than I expected, I think due to the complications I had. I was expecting to be running around by six weeks like lots of women but it really did take the full 12 weeks before I felt back to normal. Everything about the immediate postpartum was what I expected, hours and hours spent breastfeeding and snuggling our wee girl, not very much sleep. We had the added bonus of it being Christmas and summer holidays so I was very fortunate to have my husband around and lots of lovely family time.

Q: Tell us about Olive! And how have you found the transition to motherhood?

A: Our little girl is just the best! She's one now and is just the happiest, most smiley, fun, chilled little poppet. I am so so grateful for her every single day.

Given all that I knew about pregnancy, birth and the immediate postpartum period nothing could have prepared me for the reality of motherhood and I almost feel disappointed in myself for not coping with the transition better, which is ridiculous because it's a massive life-altering experience! I absolutely LOVE being a mum, it's literally a dream, and one that we spent a LOT of money on, and I still struggled with postnatal anxiety for the first six months of Olive's life, so I think that says a lot.

Mum life really is the most selfless life you’ve ever experienced, especially in the beginning when your baby is so dependent on you. I remember just waiting for my life to go back to ‘normal’ and realising after a few weeks that this is my normal now. It feels so foreign and you feel so lost and like you don't know what you're doing but I promise it gets easier, they get less dependent on you as they grow, you start to adjust and find yourself again, even if she looks a little different to who she was before. She is better, stronger and you will be so so proud of her.

Grace Strange is a midwife and creator of Antenatal Co. – independent antenatal classes that were born out of a desire to ensure parents have access to the very best antenatal education and head into labour, birth and beyond fully prepared. Find out more at antenatal.co.nz or on Instagram @antenatalco